


Take Me Apart

by ohmarqueliot



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Angst, Gen, M/M, Possession
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-06
Updated: 2019-01-06
Packaged: 2019-10-05 10:20:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,896
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17323169
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohmarqueliot/pseuds/ohmarqueliot
Summary: His fingers tightened on the handle, trying and failing to steady his shaking hand. The blade was right against its side, one sharp thrust up and in and it would be over, all of it would be done. Penny wasn’t back yet but he was out of time - it was now or never.------------The group has captured the Monster, and Quentin is keeping guard while the others go to retrieve a battery to help save Eliot.





	Take Me Apart

**Author's Note:**

> Includes a major character death

“You don't seriously think that's going to work, do you?”

Tightening his grip around the knife in his hand, Quentin took a deep breath, trying to steady himself with little success. It had to work - they didn't have any other options.

He wasn't going to let that _thing_ live in Eliot any longer than he had to.

The knife was their only chance. Forged by the god Hephaestus, it was supposed to do more than just kill a god - it was supposed to kill _anything_. All he needed was for Penny to return with the battery so they could heal Eliot's body once the Monster had died, and he could drive that knife right into his chest.

Into Eliot's chest…

But he could do it. He would do it, and then they'd heal him, and it would be fine.

He just wished he hadn't had to stay with it _alone_ while the others ran their ‘get the battery, fuck up the Library' mission.

“I'd recognise Hephaestus’s handiwork anywhere,” the Monster continued, his voice light and dismissive. “Do you think I haven't been pierced by a god-made blade? Do you think you have _anything_ you can hurt me with?”

The Monster’s laugh echoed through the room, and Quentin glanced up despite himself. The Monster stared at him through Eliot’s eyes, and he felt his stomach twist in disgust and anger. It was tied to a chair in the middle of the room with ropes gifted from the god, enchanted to keep even the strongest beings trapped. They were in one of Marina’s large spare bedrooms, cleared out except for the chair that the Monster was tied to, but Quentin felt trapped and claustrophobic under the Monster’s gaze.

“You could just leave,” Quentin said angrily. He knew it was taunting him, knew that rising to the bait wasn’t going to get him anywhere, but he couldn’t stop himself, not after playing babysitter for the past hour. Looking at him now… at it - at _him_ , Quentin felt sick. Eliot's eyes flashed with malice and a sick delight at the pain he was causing. His body was unhealthily thin. The Monster was destroying him, burning through his body without a care for anything except the fact that it might not be able to use him against them anymore. “Leave his body, give it back to him.”

The Monster forced Eliot's lips back into a teeth-baring grin. “Why would I leave? I like this body.” Pausing, it tilted its head to the side, taking his bottom lip between his teeth for a moment and then shaking its head as though it saw straight through him. “You would never hurt this body. He tries to tell me that you will, that you’ll kill him if it means defeating me, but he can’t hide it from me. I see everything.” It’s lips stretched again into a sneer. “How weak you are in your love for him.”

Without warning, the Monster rose from the chair and flew across the room towards him. _But the ropes_ \- he didn’t have time to question, only panic, and somehow he managed to get the knife up between them as its hand circled his throat and pushed him back against the wall. He felt it snag something - shirt or skin, he didn’t know - and he wanted to press forward, he needed to, he _had_ to, but…

His fingers tightened on the handle, trying and failing to steady his shaking hand. The blade was right against its side, one sharp thrust up and in and it would be over, all of it would be done. Penny wasn’t back yet but he was out of time - it was now or never. The Monster pressed him against the wall, its hands moving to clutch at his shoulders. “Do it,” it gasped, leaning into the blade. “Do it, _now.”_ It’s voice was strained, its body starting to tremble. “Q…”

His heart stopping in his chest, Quentin pushed it back - pushed _Eliot_ back until he could see his face. It couldn’t be true… but the anguish in Eliot’s eyes as he looked back at him wasn’t something that the Monster was capable of. “Eliot,” he said, his name falling from his lips in a sob as he threw his arms around him. Eliot’s arms came around him immediately, their bodies held tightly together and their arms squeezing impossibly tighter. He’d been living moment to moment in panic and rage and sadness ever since he’d woken from his life as Brian, and that one moment of relief was almost enough to break him.

Eliot’s grip on him loosened slightly, and he felt every part of him protest until Eliot’s hand sank into his hair, his forehead pressing against his. His eyes were squeezed shut, and Quentin’s stomach twisted. “What is it? What’s happening?" 

Closing his hand around Quentin’s on the knife, Eliot pulled his hand to his side, and he felt warm wetness on his fingers through the tear in his shirt. Blood. He had cut him. “The blade works, Quentin. Just the cut was enough to shake it, and I managed to get control. But I don’t think I have long. I can feel it fighting me.” His breath was ragged, his voice hoarse, and after a pause he let out a long, low groan. He adjusted his hand over Quentin’s, both of their fingers becoming slippery with blood, and pressed the blade against his skin. “Quick. Before it takes control again.”

Quentin tried to pull away, tried to drop the knife, but Eliot’s grip around his was too tight. He leaned back enough to get a proper look at Eliot’s face and saw his jaw set in determination despite the fear and pain in his eyes. _No._ “I-I can’t. I can’t heal you without the battery, and Penny -”

“If you don’t do it now, when he can’t fight back, he’s going to kill you,” Eliot said, his voice starting surprisingly strong but then breaking on the last few words. The gentle brush of his thumb across his cheek was finally what caused his first tears to well over, and Eliot’s arm slipped around his shoulders, pulling him close again and pressing his cheek against his. Quentin’s arm wrapped around his back, his fingers twisting in the material at the back of his shirt. “You, and Margo, and everyone else. Don’t make me do that, Quentin, please,” he said, his voice thin and desperate.

Quentin’s throat was burning, his tears blinding him, and he squeezed his eyes shut tightly as he buried his face into Eliot’s neck. He wasn’t strong enough for this. “I can’t,” he choked out. “Eliot -”

“Please,” he begged, and Quentin trembled. “Do it. You have to do it.”

He pressed forward, pushing Quentin more firmly against the wall and himself against the blade, and Quentin felt as much as heard his gasp when the blade pierced his skin again. His whole body started to shake, and Quentin knew Eliot couldn’t take it any further himself.

It was up to him.

He couldn’t do it.

His face crumpling, he thrust the knife forward and up, forcing the blade underneath Eliot’s sternum and into his heart.

Eliot’s cry of pain was like a knife in his own heart, and his hands tightened painfully for a moment before his whole body seemed to slacken and he collapsed against him. “No,” he cried, setting Eliot carefully on the ground and then kneeling over him. Eliot was gasping for breath, his hands twitching at his sides. His body stiffened, his eyes flashing with fire and Quentin scrambled back. A golden shimmer poured from Eliot’s body, floating above him for a few seconds before the gold turned to black and disintegrated into nothing.

“Thank you,” Eliot breathed, his hand reaching weakly in Quentin’s direction. Quentin took it in both of his, and it immediately went loose in his grip.

Eliot’s whole body stilled. “No,” he gasped, letting go of his hand to grab at his shoulders, but Eliot’s head only lolled lifelessly until he lowered him back onto the floor. Quentin’s bloody hands fluttered nervously above the knife - should he pull it out, or leave it in? His chest was burning and he was peripherally aware that he was breathing too hard, too fast, but he _didn’t know what to do._ Eliot’s eyes stared sightlessly at the ceiling, and when he reached out with trembling fingers against Eliot’s neck, he couldn’t find a pulse.

“Penny!” he screamed, aloud and in his mind, remembering too late that Penny couldn’t hear him without magic. “No,” he whimpered, lifting Eliot by the shoulders and cradling him against his chest, careful not to touch the blade. There was already so much blood, and it would be worse if he pulled it out, and - and maybe that meant there was still a chance to heal him, if he didn’t lose any more blood before Penny got there. Maybe they could still save him. Half-blinded by his tears, he smoothed Eliot’s hair back from his face, leaving a bloody steak in his wake, and then bent down to press his lips to his forehead. He was still warm, that was good, right? That was… that was…

It couldn’t have been more than a minute or two before the sound of Margo’s scream filled the room. “Holy shit,” Penny said slowly.

Quentin didn’t have time for his reaction, or even Margo’s. He didn’t have time to feel his pain or his panic or the desperation that threatened to crush him. Her hand gripped tightly at his shoulder, the other reaching for Eliot, but he grabbed her hand before she could. “Quick, here,” he said, pulling her down beside him and moving Eliot into her arms. She quickly took his place, staring at him for a second before shifting her wide eyed gaze to Eliot. Her fingers touched gently at his cheek, at his neck, shaking his shoulder gently, and then not so gently.

“Eliot? Eliot, _don’t you fucking dare do this to me.”_

Quentin turned toward Penny, who was already holding the battery out to him. The ball of shiny metal fitted easily in the palm of his hand, and he could feel the magic radiating from it. It had to be enough. It had to.

Turning back to Eliot, he knelt down on the opposite side to Margo and tried to block them out to focus on the battery. He was dimly aware of Penny hovering by his shoulder. “How long?”

“A few minutes,” he said distractedly, waving his hand over the battery to activate it.

“Quentin… This is healing magic, not _resurrection_ magic.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Margo snarled, and he was momentarily grateful for her before he pushed both of them from his mind. If you could shock someone’s heart back to life in a hospital, he could fix Eliot with magic. He wasn’t a practised Healer, none of them were, but with the help of the battery and the raw emotion running through him, it had to be enough.

He couldn’t accept the thought of it not being enough. His eyes flickered up at Eliot as he lay in Margo’s arms. He looked like he could just be sleeping, if not for the knife buried to the hilt in his still chest, or the blank stare of his lifeless eyes. Margo’s fingers were white where she gripped him, her cheeks wet but her gaze hard as it met Quentin’s. “Do it,” she said firmly.

Just like Eliot had, before he’d -

Swallowing down the anguish that threatened to take him over, he channelled that instead into his hands as they began to work through the sequence that they’d practised in preparation for this. Only, the spell was supposed to be ready to go as soon as the Monster had been killed, leaving Eliot’s body free. They’d reasoned that if they placed the completed spell on him within seconds of his body and the Monster dying, they’d be able to save him. What difference did a few minutes make?

He held onto that as he felt the spell coming together, but it wasn’t enough. Pulling more power from the battery, he channelled that into the spell, and it wasn’t enough. As it formed, the spell measured its success against the person it was designed around, and he knew that it wasn’t strong enough to heal him - he was too far gone.

 _No._ He wouldn’t accept it. Spitting out the Slavic as quickly as he could without stumbling over the words, his voice growing hoarse, he drained the last of the power from the battery and poured it into the spell along with every ounce of rage and agony and helplessness he felt in the wake of Eliot’s death. _Eliot’s_ death. He wasn’t going to let it happen. He could not accept a world without Eliot in it.

“Margo, the knife,” he said through gritted teeth. Thankfully, she acted immediately, grabbing the bloody handle in one hand and pulling it from Eliot’s body with a sickening squelch. Finishing off the final twist of his fingers, Quentin leaned forward and held his hands above Eliot’s chest, squinting against the brightness of the golden light that erupted beneath them. He pressed down until his hands were splayed across Eliot’s chest, forcing the magic underneath his skin.

He could feel so much wrong with his body - it was bruised and malnourished, the Monster’s power burning up his body without his own magic to balance it out. Quentin ignored all of it and focused on the torn muscle in his chest. He just needed enough to bring him back, to keep him alive. He held his breath as he felt the walls of his heart start to knit back together. As soon as it was done he set his blood cells to multiplying to replace the blood that he’d lost, and sent everything he could to his brain - it hadn’t been so long as to cause brain damage… he hoped. With the last of the spell, he healed the cut in his chest enough that he wouldn’t continue to bleed from it and set his heart to beating.

Quentin didn’t realise he had slumped forward until he was caught by two firm arms around his chest, and instead he toppled back against Penny. Exhaustion hit him full force, and he would have been grateful for the support if he could think of anything except for whether Eliot would wake up. There was nothing more they could do - it was up to Eliot now.

_Please be okay. I can’t live with myself if you’re not okay._

After a pause that felt like years, Eliot’s shoulders stiffened and he took a deep, shuddering breath. Quentin leaned forward, his hand scrambling to find Eliot’s. His hand was still limp when he took it in his, the other resting cautiously on his chest, but after a moment it twitched. “Eliot?” Margo said softly, like she didn’t dare hope. Quentin didn’t dare hope.

Slowly, Eliot’s eyes flickered open. Margo let out a sound that was half sob, half laugh, ducking her head to bury it against his shoulder. Eliot’s other hand lifted slowly to touch her shoulder, while the other one tightened in Quentin’s grip. “I can’t believe… you killed me…”

He knew Eliot was looking for a protest that he was the one who’d demanded it, but Quentin couldn’t… he just couldn’t. He couldn’t think of anything except the man before him, weak and injured and deathly pale, but _alive_ and making stupid jokes about his death. He grinned down at Eliot through his tears, but the smile dissolved when he couldn’t shake the image of Eliot’s lifeless figure, or the sound he’d made when he’d forced the blade into him. “Fuck, El,” he managed.

“Hey,” Margo said, reaching across Eliot to take a firm grip on Quentin’s arm. He looked up at her reluctantly, and found everything he felt staring back at him. Plus strength. More strength than he was able to muster right now. After everything, he felt like he was finally falling apart. “We’re okay. We’re all okay. That parasite’s dead?”

“Yeah,” he said with a glance at Eliot, his voice breaking on the tightness of his throat.

“Then we’re good. You saved him, Q.” She reached up to push his hair out of his eyes, then lowered her hand to cup Eliot’s face. “Thank fuck.”

Seeing that no one was in any danger of dying in the next few minutes, Penny Travelled back to the Library to give what help he could to the others. Slowly, carefully, Quentin wrapped his arms around Eliot and helped him up into a sitting position. He’d intended to help him to stand and move him to the bathroom to clean the blood off of him, or to one of the other bedroom’s if he couldn’t manage that, but Eliot’s arm tightened around him with a surprising amount of strength, holding him close against him. His face buried in his neck, his other arm pulling Margo into him.

None of them had to say anything. They understood. Quentin relaxed his grip a little at Eliot’s gasp of pain, but Eliot only held on tighter.

Despite Margo’s words, they weren’t okay. None of them were okay. But now, they could start healing.


End file.
